Creative Practice 4Danielle E. Young

Final piece

Up-close detail shot

For this week's final creative practice assignment, I chose to incorporate three mediums: sharpie, watercolor and colored pencil. I decided to depict a yogi (in a yoga pose) and turn my subject into a silhouette. I limited myself to cool colors because cool colors are often associated with relaxation.

This piece of artwork is representational of the theories we learned about in module 5, regarding relaxation response, flow state and psychoneuroimmunology but it really relates will to the whole course, when you think about the bigger picture of arts in medicine as a whole.

In module five, we discussed the concept of mindfulness and having a healthy mind. Two ways to achieve this are practices such as yoga, prayer and meditation which can aid to elicit relaxation response and induce flow state as well.

The yogi represented in my artwork has her palms facing upward which in yoga, is movement or pose used to receive energy. Yoga is a form of inner expression which connects mind to body. "This is the great error of our day, that the physicians separates the soul from the body" (Hippocrates). Ms. Lee mentioned in module 5's video that it is our job to correct that, and expressive acts such as art and yoga, are ways in which we can do that.

As an artist in residence, I would definitely incorporate mindfulness practices into artwork to promote healing. I would use meditation as pre-cursor for an art piece. By doing this, patients have the chance to reflect, bring their attention to nothing else but how they feel at that moment and use those feelings as a building block to create.